Watermelon SLIM & The Workers 2006

Watermelon SLIM & The Workers 2006

Blues

Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans sings like a baying basset, drawing the tongue-in-cheek misery of tunes like "Hard Times" and "Check Writing Woman" out in long, dry-mouthed syllables. But it's the slide guitar on this, his third album, that really howls, whether he's playing smooth and shimmery on his original take on the Robert Johnson myth "Devil's Cadillac" or drawing on the ghost of Elmore James on "Hard Labor." That blend of humor--always delivered from a skewed autobiographical perspective--and raw-boned backwoods virtuosity makes this one of the year's more colorful blues albums and should elevate Slim from the genre's underground. And while his backing trio, the Workers, are a crack outfit whose spare accompaniment beautifully frames Slim's laconic musings, the solo "Folding Money Blues"--just Slim moaning along with his acoustic guitar--is a high point, with Slim telling his complaints to all the "dead presidents." He deserves our ears, too.
By Ted Drozdowski. AMG.
**
Oklahoma blues singer, harp player, and slide guitarist Bill Homans is known to the paying public as Watermelon Slim. He plays a chunky update of traditional blues, performing both self-penned originals like "Hard Times" and well-chosen covers ...    Full Descriptionlike Mississippi Fred McDowell's train song, "Frisco Line." Slim's voice carries the authentic stamp of a hard-lived life, and he's ably supported by an empathetic stripped-down acoustic and electric combo.
**
Watermelon Slim- (Vocals, Slide Guitar, Dobro, Harp);
Ike Lamb- (Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Background Vocals);
Cliff Belcher- (Electric Guitar, Background vocals);
Michael Newberry- (Drums, Percussion, Background Vocals).
Additional personnel:
Dennis Borysckl- (Piano);
Chris Wick- (Electric Bass).
**
01. Hard Times 4:17
02. Dumpster Blues 3:01
03. Baby Please Don't Go 2:43
04. Devil's Cadillac 4:04
05. Check Writing Woman 2:55
06. Possum Hand 3:58
07. Frisco Line 4:27
08. Ash Tray 3:40
09. Mack Truck 2:27
10. Bad Sinner 3:38
11. Folding Money Blues 4:57
12. Juke Joint Woman 5:00
13. Hard Labor 5:14
14. Eau De Boue 2:15
**
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